


Of Velvet Coats and Silver Chainmail

by Abyssiniana



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, AtU Secret Santa, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:57:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana
Summary: Across the Universe Secret Santa gift for darlingZany!Hope you like it, sweetie!«Velvet coats and silky wines were a given for Takashi Shirogane.»--or, Shiro the King felt the temporary absence of his favorite knight underneath his skin.





	Of Velvet Coats and Silver Chainmail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zanywriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanywriter/gifts).



Velvet coats and silky wines were a given for Takashi Shirogane.

 

Luck - or perhaps the lack of it - put him in a crib adorned in gold, but as much of a blessing that may have been in his careless younger years, it didn't take long until the weight of responsibility forced his shoulders to widen, his stance to steady and his heart to harden.

 

He had been raised strictly within the castle grounds, surrounded by thick books of time-tainted pages filled with history, weekly sessions of sparring and calligraphy, posture and diction classes. There was a time to eat, a limited schedule to play, and a bedtime curfew. There were duties and lessons and daily praying.

 

But nothing could have prepared him for the reality of being a king a little too soon. 

 

War broke out on a morning that could have been like any other if not for the fire, the screaming and clashes of swords. The whinney of the horses, the cries of now childless mothers, lost limbs and fallen frontlines to the opposing kingdom of Daibazaal. It had been foretold in dreams of ancient counselors, the stars had tried to glow in warning as effectively as they could, but the effort to keep the peace through diplomatic measures was the kingdom’s downfall.

 

The capital had been overrun by the evening, there was blood and he had been taken to a hideout through passages in the castle he didn’t even know existed. He had always wanted this, it occurred to him, to fight and defend and conquer for his home. That’s what he dreamed of when he played with his toy chevalier in the carpeted floor of his quarters. In those childish fantasies, he was a hero with sword and shield, but war was crude and raw, and the Prince who was hidden away was no more than a scared little boy who wasn’t prepared to be the hero he always thought he was meant be. 

 

The casualties, the dead in the battlefield, were engraved in the back of his mind, a permanent reminder that he wasn’t quick enough, not effective enough,  _ not strong enough-- _

 

_ No more _ , he had promised, fists clenched around the velvet of his coat, tears drying as he ran away from the nursemaid who had raised him, legendary family sword pulled out of the decorative frame in the Grand Hall.

 

With no time to mourn the sudden loss of his last living relative -  _ Ojiisan _ for him only and his Royal Highness Ryou Shirogane for anyone else - the crown demanded more of a sixteen-year-old kid than he had to offer. He won a war, but he didn’t come away unscarred. How could a teenager get away with challenging the Galran General? He did, but only barely; the war had been postponed indefinitely rather than ended, but the boy without an arm and a set of scars across his body now had the additional weight of a golden crown on his head.

 

Forced to take on the burden of the throne too early, prince Takashi learned the hard way what it meant to rule a kingdom. 

 

There were documents to sign - dear Lord, too many - and it was hard to work his way around writing with his only hand. There were laws to be upheld, justice to administer, land quarrels to solve and wars to be stopped before they could erupt.

 

Years had passed since his black-clad coronation and even at the age of twenty-five, velvet coats and silky wines were a given, but leather, steel and sweat were a craving.

 

Having been made a man out of war, that was where he itched to be. There were matters to be resolved and justice to be delivered. If anyone should be in the front line, it would have to be him. If anyone had to show his people what had to be done, what cause had to be protected, it would have to be no one but him.

 

Shiro bounced his leg impatiently, tapped the surface of the table, or restlessly moved from side to side in his room. There was ignored paperwork on his desk, boring meetings to be arranged, and travels to be made; his dear kingdom needed him, he was aware, but there was someone  _ else _ the king needed in order to feel like he wasn’t alone in this fight.

 

His knight.

 

His knight was the true hero in Shiro’s story. Someone who fought with him, for him. Someone he loved. The knight was bound to go unwritten in history, or unsung in the taverns, but he was carved deep into the king’s core. 

 

* * *

 

Word traveled fast in town, but not fast enough to penetrate the thick walls of the castle and reach the king's ears, not until someone helpfully informed him. And this time, no one had bothered. If he hadn't scanned the city from the balcony of his quarters out of nothing but agitated habit, then he wouldn't have seen nor recognized the exhausted horse in the stables.  _ Kitty Rose _ , thirst still unquenched as the trough was refilled by the stable boy, coat stained by miry land, mane wavy demanding a brush to rid the beautiful hair of pieces of dirt.

 

Upon seeing the gorgeous mare, the king turned on his heel and marched back inside, hoping the frown on his brow didn't alarm any of the chamberlains he flew past in his hurry.

 

_ He was here. _

 

The large portraits on the castle walls told a chronological story of a dynasty, ancestors whose painted eyes rested heavily on him, but Shiro forced himself to keep going and avoid the silent judgment on his back.  _ What would they say _ , he mused in thought, with vague glances at his predecessors, _ if they knew how he felt for his knight? _

 

The corridor widened into a great hall; the throne room was his least favorite place within the Castle, "You've returned." The king didn't run but only because he was being watched; he might as well have been, large steps across the hall, heels echoing in floors of dark marble. It drew the unwanted attention nevertheless, if his presence wasn’t crushing enough with his power and looks alone. He was only slightly offended that the lone knight had delayed in meeting him in favor of checking in with general Kolivan, but he ignored it when he saw the older man lower his head in respect and leave.

 

The knight presented him with what he had been sent to retrieve. But to hell with the retrieved relic, a blade of legend, as beautiful as it was enigmatic; while most may have been enthralled by the purple glow of the stone, the king was relieved to meet a different type of gleam: eyes that rivaled the beauty of the night sky, wild hairs combed by the desert wind after hours of travel from land to land, the triumphant smirk that gave away the success of his quest.

 

"My Lord." He bowed - never kneel, upon the king's personal request - before him and Shiro held his breath until his head hurt with oxygen deprivation and their eyes met again.

  
"Follow me." He simply said, mouth pressed tightly into a sober line.

 

“What of the blade, my Lord?”

 

“Keep it, if you so wish.”

 

Knight Kogane was a craving, and after two glasses of silky wine had traveled down their throats, it didn't take long until the king's velvet coat joined discarded chainmail on the imported tapestries of the Royal quarters.

 

Past the breastplate came the quilted coat, and Shiro cursed the immense layers of armor a knight had to wear to protect himself. Keith looked stunning in it, he did, so brave and powerful but so much better without the excessive barrier of the breastplate and silver chainmail. Without all that, he was simply… Keith.  _ His Keith _ .

 

Shiro’s chest was exposed, Keith’s hands roaming across its scarred expanse while the king busied himself with the under-layers of the armor. His movements ceased before he tugged on the strings of the chausses, eyes locking with the symbol sported by the young knight.

 

An intricate pattern of thick lines behind a lion head. The Shirogane family crest.

 

It was a carved wooden board, attached to his belt and used like a pouch on the side of Keith’s waist. A declaration. A stand. Some would see the country represented in that crest, as it matches the flag that wags in the wind, but there was more behind the simple statement of property and representation. He wore it with love, rather than pride. For Keith was his knight, and no one else’s. To further prove that fact was the purple band around Keith’s wrist; Shiro did smile at that; it was a tradition of centuries, somehow time-honored and labeled in general courting etiquette, to declare a claim with a bracelet.

 

Running his real fingertips over the piece of fabric, Shiro breathed out a sigh.  _ He was his, so much his as he was his own, but Keith and he were something so beautiful together _ \--

 

“My king?” Keith pressed, his hand resting on the curve of his lover’s neck. “Is something the matter?”

 

“ _ Shiro _ ,” he reminded him. In the confidentiality of their bedroom, he so demanded, even if the king had no authority over the one who owned his heart; if anything, it was the other way around. He stole a kiss and whispered against his lips, “Just Shiro in here, my love.”

 

Keith nodded and pressed himself forward with a whisper of his lover’s name rolling around his tongue. The haste of plum flavored kisses returned with the urgency of months apart, of moons spent away only dreaming of each other’s presence. In the privacy of their silken sheets, they were the energy that pulled the stars into constellations. The lines that connected astral bodies in the canvas of the night sky, shying away from each other’s touch when the sun bled in the horizon with the threat of a morning, but remaining in the orbit of one another nonetheless.

 

Shiro added to the knight’s bruises with a little branding of his own, his teeth marked on the curve of Keith’s shoulder as he snapped his hips against the other male’s. He had to push Keith’s hair away from his mouth as he thrusted into him, moans that tasted of wine and felt like starlight.

 

Of velvet coats on the floor and silky wines soaking on imported carpets, they were each other’s kings.


End file.
